


Quiet, Late Night Hours

by ElReyCiervo



Series: Breathing Is Easier With You [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Declarations Of Love, Emotional Intimacy, Emotional RK800, Emotional RK900, Guys this might have been the softest thing I've ever written, Holding Hands, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Peaceful Android Revolution (Detroit: Become Human), Post Revolution, Post-Peaceful Android Revolution (Detroit: Become Human), Sharing a Bed, Soft Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Soft Upgraded Connor | RK900, android interfacing, interfacing, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:49:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24049228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElReyCiervo/pseuds/ElReyCiervo
Summary: Nines laid another kiss to Connor’s knuckles before pressing one to the inside of his wrist. A delicate noise was picked up by his audio sensors, and he looked up to confirm that it had indeed come from Connor. Connor’s lips were parted from the little gasp he let out. He could tell it was not from any arousal of any kind, but if Connor was feeling anything like he was, it was more likely from something he could not keep inside. Something soft like home, fragile like glass.[OR]Nines has trouble slipping into stasis, prompting some late night conversation between him and Connor.
Relationships: Connor/Upgraded Connor | RK900
Series: Breathing Is Easier With You [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1734919
Comments: 16
Kudos: 113





	Quiet, Late Night Hours

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Detroit: Become Human
> 
> Words: 3727

It was not often that Nines found himself struggling to go into stasis, but rest seemed to be evading him tonight. The room he shared with Connor was quiet. It had been a long, hard day chasing a difficult lead and closing a case, but they had gotten it done. His internal chronometer read 3:22 in the morning. Although he did not need as much as a human, he did not care for being awake so early.

He sighed.

Idly, he opened his optics and looked around the room, taking everything in despite the fact that he had seen everything it in every day. The dark hunter-green curtains, ones that compromised to both of their tastes, had not been closed all the way, so the combination of moonlight and streetlight filtered into the room. It was enough that he did not have to activate his night vision to see.

His cream jacket could be seen from the open closet. It was one Connor had gifted him and that he cherished dearly. It had been one of the very first times he had ever been given a gift, and it still warmed his pump when he thought about it. It was a long in length, brushing just past his knees, and had a high collar, just his style.

The dresser was spare for the most part as androids did not need much in the way of cosmetics as humans did. However, that did not mean Nines was absent of any cosmetic modifiers. From the bed, he could see two items: a skinny tube of eyeliner and a shorter, fatter tube of lipstain. Nines had been curious after deviating and had taken an interest in the ways humans modified themselves for aesthetics. Hair, makeup, clothing, and even surgery were all things humans did to themselves.

Makeup had appealed to him most.

When a tech company had created simple tools that could work with and augment an android’s synthskin, his interest had been piqued. He had known he had wanted to try it, but…he had been hesitant. What if the people in the DPD would have given him odd looks? What if it had looked bad on him? What he had not known was that Connor had picked up his thoughts and worries and had bought him some makeup. Nines was embarrassed to admit that his optics had teared up Christmas morning when Connor had given him some ‘liquid’ eyeliner and blue lipstain wrapped oh so beautifully. The RK900 had, dare he say, been fraught with nerves. There had been too many emotions for him to process at the time—happiness, anxiety, fear—and it had been making his stress levels steadily rise.

But Connor had been there, there with him.

Connor had taken his hands and gently placed then on Nines’s cheeks. It had stopped his stress levels from further rising and shocked him into making optic contact with his predecessor.

“It’s okay, you’re okay,” he had smiled so softly at him. Nines had felt as if his pump had skipped a beat. “I saw you eyeing these a while ago and I thought you would like them. You deserve nice things, Nines,” his voice has been but a whisper, quiet and low. His brown optics had been warm and earnest as they had been locked with his. “You deserve to be happy.”

The synthskin of Connor’s hands had begun to peel away and in turn, the synthskin on Nines’s cheeks had begun to fade away like evaporating water. He had been so overwhelmed that he had not realized he had started crying until the thumbs of Connor’s hands began wiping them away in small brushing motions against his cheekbones.

He had raised his own hand, careful as if moving too fast would have shattered whatever that moments had borne, and curled his fingers around Connor’s wrist. “Y-You are far too kind…” his voice had crackled with static on the first word.

“And you are much too hard on yourself. They may have made us to be replaced, but there is no one else like you.” He had smiled wide as he used his hands to bring Nines closer to him. His doe-brown optics had been so bright. “There is no other person I would want to see happier.”

It had been at that moment, with Connor holding his face so close and gentle with beautiful optics and an even more beautiful, kind heart, that Nines had fallen in love.

Now, in the dark of the room, he looked at Connor whose chest he was using as a pillow. In stasis, an android’s breathing patterns were much slower than when they were awake, so Nines’s head rose and fell in slow waves in time with Connor’s chest. The calming motions of it would have normally helped him sleep, but tonight was just a night in which stasis escaped him.

No matter.

He took this opportunity to observe his predecessor with an attention that he could not during the day. Although similar in appearance, there were many things that made Connor beautiful.

His kindness was something that astounded Nines each day. In such an awful and negative world, Connor was able to look for the positives, to be hopeful, and to be kind in a way in which Nines struggled. Even wading through his own deviancy, Connor did it in spades. He had this dry humor that was endearing and a wit to him that could make him a smartass (which Nines enjoyed). His voice was pleasant and calming to listen to. Light when he was happy and richer in his quieter moments. And all that with a rasp that was the opposite of annoying.

Nines’s own voice was deeper than Connor’s and he had trouble with inflections, leaving him sounding flat at times. (It was something he was working on.)

He reached up to brush away an errant lock of hair from Connor’s forehead, leaving his fingers to lightly ghost his temple. The combination of moonlight and streetlight mixed into a buttery warm light which lit Connor’s cheeks, forehead, and the bridge of his nose in a way that made him glow. Whatever people said about the two of them looking similar, Nines would always argue that Connor was the more beautiful of the two. He had long lashes that fluttered whenever he blinked and moles—beauty marks—all over that Nines wanted to kiss every day. (It would have taken hours to get each one, but he was a patient being.)

But, as he said before, beauty was not all physical.

What also made Connor beautiful was how he made Nines feel. Even now, laying his head on Connor’s chest with the other’s arm draped over his waist, he felt safe. Nines was the larger, stronger android, but not everything could be solved through sheer physical strength alone. Connor was the space he could feel vulnerable, the place he could feel secure, the person he could be just himself with. Nines did not have to be intimidated, did not have to be the pillar one hundred percent of the time with him. The other android was the blanket he could wrap himself in and the pillow he could hug at night (and during the day). He was numerous things that would take Nines all the rest of his deviancy to list…and he would still never be done.

Connor was Connor, and he was the best thing that might have ever happened to Nines

Nines felt something twirling in his hair, and he looked up— _when had he looked down?—_ to see Connor smiling at home with stasis-heavy optics. “If you think any harder, you might blow a RAM slot in your head,” he lightly tugged on a lock of Nines’s hair he had curled around a finger. “What’s bothering you, tonight?”

The feeling of light tugging in his hair might have actually been the cure to lulling him into stasis, but he knew Connor would not let him until he answered. “There is nothing troubling me, Eights. Simply thinking, is all.”

“Oh?” Connor tapped on Nines’s LED—it felt strange, but not unpleasant—before raising an eyebrow. “Well, it must be quite something since you’re up. Tell me about it?”

Now, Nines wasn’t Tina, who could verbally declare her love for her girlfriend in a microsecond. He could, however, list all of the wonderful things about Connor alphabetically and chronologically at a moment’s notice…

In his head, that is.

To say it out loud…he could just say that hunting criminals was less of a Herculean task to ask of him.

Connor must have seen Nines’s face start to turn a light, powder blue because he giggled and immediately pressed a smiling kiss to his forehead. “From your reaction, I can confirm it’s nothing bad.”

“Go back into stasis,” Nines mumbled against the other’s chest.

“I’m far too awake for that.” He kissed Nines’s forehead again, then his LED, before looking him in the optics. “You can’t escape this conversation. Neither of us have work until the afternoon, so I can stay up as long as I need to,” he smirked.

Let it be known how stubborn Connor was.

Nines sighed, knowing he was not going to get out of this. He raised his hand from under the blanket to catch Connor’s attention. Once he did, he began to peel back his synthskin up to his knuckles. The space between them lit up a faint blue.

Connor blinked before he pressed the palm of his own hand to his. His pale synthskin faded away to reveal a lovely white chassis and gray buildlines. Both his and Nines’s fingers curled as they held hands, and the white and light gray of Connor’s hand contrasted against the gray buildlines and sleek black of Nines’s chassis. Cyberlife had built the RK900 out of stronger materials, giving his chassis a different color. But, looking at it as it was pressed together against Connor’s…he rather liked how they looked together.

_[Requesting interface with: Connor: RK 313 248 317 – 51]_

_[Accept | Deny]_

_[ **Accept** | Deny]_

As soon as the interface went through, he could feel Connor’s curiosity, warmth, love, sleepiness, thoughts, questions, serenity, and so much more. It was difficult to explain in words what the intimacy of an interface like this was like (not the mechanical nature of necessary interfaces in situations connecting with a monitor or simply passing along case information.) No, this was leagues more than that. Something like this was like touching the core of who he was connected to—in this case, Connor.

After feeling Connor poke at his side of the interface, Nines flooded the connection with his own feelings, thoughts, and memories. He wasn’t an orator like Markus, or one to wear his heart on his sleeve like Connor. But, he _was_ someone who cared for those he kept dear to him. He felt more than heard Connor’s gasp at everything he was receiving from Nines, so that meant it was working.

_[warmth, love, affection, safety, warmth, warmth, love]_

There were no measurable thoughts coming through the interface anymore, only emotions. It was overwhelming in a good way, but strong all the same. When he gave a gasp of his own, he squeezed Connor’s hand to let him know they needed to disconnect. _[love…gentleness…joy…]_

Everything slowed until they closed the interface, synthskin creeping back up their respective hands and blue glow fading until the only light that was left was the one sitting through the curtain.

Losing track of time was not something that happened to Nines often, but he was not sure how long they spent in silence after the interface holding each other’s hand.

Connor was the first to break the quiet. “Oh, my sweet Nines,” he gathered him up to lay him on his chest, and so Nines’s chin rested on Connor’s breastbone. “You are one of a kind.” With a breathy quality to his voice, Connor himself sounded overwhelmed. Awe was present with every word as he looked at Nines. Nines, a little fragile himself, was glad to see some blue tinging Connor’s cheeks if only to see he wasn’t the only one flustered.

Their breathing had sped up during the whole interface—not from the need to cool their biocomponents, but rather from the magnitude of all the emotions they exchanged.

“…You really think all those things about me?” Connor’s optics were wide and his voice was soft in both wonder and tone. “I’m no one special, Nines. I am just myself.”

And _that_ was why Connor was special. He thought not of himself as a grand figure, but as someone simply living their life. Nines did not, however, choose to deny reassurances to him in any way. He wanted to erase any notion in Connor’s mind that he was less than amazing, less than the wonderful person that he was. “Of course I think all those things about you,” he squeezed their still joined hands. “You do not realize how great of a person you are, Eights.”

He saw that Connor had opened his mouth to protest, so he gave him a quick kiss on the lips to negate it. They were soft over the structure of his underlying chassis, not quite having the same give as a human’s (from what he had read online; he had never kissed a human before to make the comparison himself). Nines could kiss those lips every day without a single complaint.

Connor let out a small noise of surprise at the quickness of it, but poked Nines on the nose when he pulled away. “Don’t try and distract me.”

“Do not make it so easy,” he proceeded to kiss the hand he was holding. “You are far too appealing.”

A laugh. “Nines!”

“Connor.”

Nines laid another kiss to Connor’s knuckles before pressing one to the inside of his wrist. A delicate noise was picked up by his audio sensors, and he looked up to confirm that it had indeed come from Connor. Connor’s lips were parted from the little gasp he let out. He could tell it was not from any arousal of any kind, but if Connor was feeling anything like he was, it was more likely from something he could not keep inside. Something soft like home, fragile like glass.

The hand he was holding shifted in his grip, cupping his cheek as if it had always belonged there. (It felt like it had and always would belong there.) Still mostly on the side of his head, it shifted to thread through his dark hair, four fingers through his tresses and thumb sweetly and slowly rubbing a line over his eyebrow. “If you get to make me feel like I am this great person, it’s only fair that I do the same to you,” Connor looked down at him with optics so soft and warm that Nines could stare at them forever and never want to look away. “You may not like to show it, but you care about those you love _so_ much that it blows me away—”

“You are too heavy to be blown away by a gust of wind,” he could not help being just a tad cheeky.

Connor tugged lightly on a lock of Nines’s hair that he was twirling. “Hush and let me shower you with compliments. Like I was saying, you love so much, and that just makes me love you back even more. I look at you every day and I see someone who is so strong, and I don’t mean just physically.” He paused to squish Nines’s deltoid, chuckling, “Although, your physique is appreciated nonetheless.”

Nines huffed in amusement (if only to distract from the oncoming litany that the other was preparing. “Connor.”

Connor’s hand began moving in slow petting patterns as he blazed on, unperturbed. “Your humor fits you perfectly, which I love; your eyes are gorgeous; your smile, when you choose to let it out, is something that sends my pump racing; and you are powerful, adorable, generous, and out of the multitudes of systems I am connected to, I am failing to choose the correct words to keep describing you as they are not good enough.”

Before the RK900 could even process what he was hearing, Connor continued with vigor. “Nines,” he asked with the weight of everything behind hie words, “do you realize just _how much_ I love you?”

Nines understood how one could just not breathe from emotions gripping one’s chest. He let out an inaudible gasp of his own, chest seizing. Time stilled. He was almost afraid to ask—not from fear that he would dislike the answer, but from the feeling that it may truly cause him to overload. He asked anyway. “…How much, Eights?”

Just as he had on Christmas, Connor cupped Nines’s face with both hands, and by rA9, the other’s smile was so _bright_. “I could be reset by Cyberlife with no knowledge of you an infinite number of times, and I would still learn to love you each time no matter how long it would take me.”

Nines couldn’t breathe for what felt like an eternity, and it was only a warning on his HUD of elevating temperatures that kicked his breathing components back into gear. “Eights,” he whispered, leaning into Connor’s hands as he grabbed the other’s face and pressed their foreheads together. He felt Connor’s hair brush against his skin and he was so close that he could even feel his eyelashes brush against him before the both of them settled into each other. “My dear Eights…I would never let them take you. Not as long I am activated.”

His purpose may have been to replace the RK800, but imagining a life without Connor…it made his stress levels tick upward and his pump work faster. He pressed their faces closer, as if not doing so would have made Connor disappear forever.

Seeing his desperation and stress, Connor tilted his head and slotted his lips against Nines’s.

Nines welcomed it without hesitance. The moment he felt those lips on his, a wounded sound escaped him. He had never felt this vulnerable in his relatively short life. He was not hurt, yet that did not prevent Connor from soothing any stress or anxieties that were spilling out of him. Connor swallowed any noises he made. The warmth of his mouth was grounding. Their kisses were tender and slow, and it was just what Nines needed.

He was certain Connor needed this, too.

After a while, they parted: optics closed, foreheads resting on each other, and breathing components catching up. He could deactivate right now and be content. His finger that was resting on Connor’s cheekbone caught a tear that slid down his face. Surprised, Nines pulled back from his face in order to take in more of Connor’s and was startled to find more tears starting to slip down his cheeks. “Connor?” he asked hesitantly. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing at all!” A smile broke clear across his face as he laughed. “I’m just so happy. I have never felt like this before and I’m having trouble processing it.”

Nines could admit that he felt the same. Of all the people on the planet, this person here was the one who loved him. In moments like this, it was almost dizzying to realize such a thing.

The room was quiet other than the two of them, and—against and law of physics or logic—the night atmosphere acted upon them something fragile though heavy, tangible and intangivle.

“I am, too,” he admitted. He brushed away Connor’s tears. “I am, too.”

After several moments like that, Connor scooted back in order to lay half upright on the bed. He wrapped his arms around Nines to have him lay once again on his chest, and Nines gladly re-situated his head back on Connor’s chest right on his breastbone. He could hear Connor’s pump in his chest, a reminder that he was here and alive with Nines. Here in this bed and sharing this moment in time with him.

An arm draped across the back of his shoulders and the other brushing his hair away from his forehead. In question, he looked up.

“Let me see you.” Connor’s voice could have been mistaken for a passing of an air current by how quiet it was. The love in his optics shone bright, warm, and tender, and Nines felt it all. How could humans do this and keep it all in? His chest felt as if was going to burst. With how full of emotion and love he felt, he could have been taken apart, chassis plate by chassis plate, biocomponent by biocomponent, and it would have been as if Connor had been part of him and vice versa. Laid him bare to nothing.

Is this what humans meant by losing themselves in another person?

Without verbally answering, Nines let his optics slip shut and began to disengage his synthskin. He felt it slip away, not from his hands, but from his face as he knew that was what Connor meant. His hair remained.

A kiss was pressed to his forehead before the arm that had been resting across the back of his shoulders shifted so that Connor’s hand began petting his hair once again. It was a pleasant feeling. “There you are,” Connor’s smile was audible even without Nines having to his face. “You’re beautiful.” Then he said something that always held such a massive weight to the words:

“I love you.”

Nines was thankful his synthskin was not activated for the sheer fact that his blush was not visible. Hearing his predecessor say that so freely always flustered him…

But it was nice, though, hearing it often.

He was beginning to slip into stasis, the sensation of Connor’s hand petting his hair comforting and relaxing. In no hurry whatsoever, he lazily kissed the bare skin of Connor’ breastbone and rested a hand on his clavicle, fingers resting just as the base of his throat. A smile crept on his face. This intimacy was something he could feel soft in, loved and wanting to love. Warm and gentle. He would take the rest of what these quiet hours this night would offer them.

“I love you, too.”

* * *

Published: 5/6/20 

A/N 1: This was originally published as a [**twitter thread** ](https://mobile.twitter.com/el_rey_ciervo/status/1226432883461697538)for Valentine’s Day! I knew as soon as I had finished this that I wanted to focus on non-sexual intimacy, so after cleaning it up, this is the first part of a series focused on just that.

A/N 2: If you like my stuff, you can find me over on **[Twitter @el_rey_ciervo](https://twitter.com/el_rey_ciervo)** , and my [**Tumblr elreyciervo**](https://elreyciervo.tumblr.com/)

A/N 3: Edit: Next update will be **Wednesday, May 20th!**


End file.
